URBAN DESIGN International

https://doi.org/10.1057/s41289-019-00082-w

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Public space in an age of austerity

Matthew Carmona1 · Gro Sandkjær Hanssen2 · Bettina Lamm3 · Katarina Nylund4 · Inger‑Lise Saglie5 · Anne Tietjen3

© The Author(s) 2019

Abstract
Through an overview of the decade 2008 to 2017, and looking comparatively across four northern European cities, this
paper reflects on the changing nature of public space during these austerity years and on the processes of shaping public
spaces. The paper draws from the experiences of London, Copenhagen, Malmo and Oslo to explore processes of the design,
development, use and management of public spaces during this period. The evidence suggests that we have witnessed a
period of significant innovation, side by side with major challenges to the collective approach to public spaces. This has
led to distinct forms of public spaces that for good or ill have multiplied as a result of the trends discussed in the paper,
spaces of; expectation; the private/public sphere; spectacle; respite; infrastructure; diversion; income generation; security;
the ephemeral city; community control; occupation; disadvantage; and decline. Episodes of changing practice are set out in
the paper and cumulatively reveal distinct and significant changes during the austerity era, although not necessarily in the
manner that might have been expected. Instead, in these four cities, the impact of austerity seems to have been eclipsed by
other evolving and competing public policy goals, and by the evolving range of public space types.

Keywords  Public space · Austerity · Innovation

Introduction (Bone 2012); a project that has frequently been underesti-

Since the financial crisis of 2008 governments, municipali-
ties, developers and ultimately communities have had to rap-
idly adapt to a new more uncertain reality. Some argue that
the period has marked a new and distinctive era with its own
political-economy, governance and societal norms (Bramall
2013, pp. 84–110). For others the period is simply a continu-
ation, perhaps even a deepening, of the neo-liberal project
* Matthew Carmona
m.carmona@ucl.ac.uk
1
The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL, London, UK
2
Norwegian Institute of Urban and Regional Research, Oslo
and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Oslo,
Norway
3
Section for Landscape Architecture and Planning,
Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource
Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen,
Denmark
4
Department of Urban Studies, Malmö University College,
Malmö, Sweden
5
Department of Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning,
Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway
mated as regards its capacity for transformative and adaptive
change (Peck and Tickell 2002, p. 400); and which continues
to thrive (albeit evolving) both within its heartlands (e.g.
England) and as modified by a Scandinavian welfare sen-
sibility (Peck and Tickell 2002, p. 387): both the subject of
this paper. In each case, the impact on public spaces, as the
discussion will show, is not always what might be expected.
Winston Churchill argued that we should “never let a
good crisis go to waste”. Reflecting Churchill’s maxim, in
times of crisis some evidence exists of a flowering of ideas
and practices relating to public spaces as the most quintes-
sentially shared parts of our built environment. Smog filled
Victorian cities, for example, saw a flowering of public
parks, Europe’s bomb-ravaged post-war cities saw the new
forms of expansive Modernist public space take root, and
the economic shocks of the 1980s led to private corporations
rediscovering the commercial value of traditional public
spaces such as at London’s Canary Wharf.
Whilst others have written about what has been christened
‘austerity urbanism’, this discourse often focuses more on
the governance and political impacts of austerity in urban
areas, rather than on its spatial implications (e.g. Peck 2012;
Mayer 2013). Therefore, looking back over the past eight

Vol.:(0123456789)

years, this paper asks, has a ‘good crisis’ gone to waste? To
do so it explores how the austerity context has impacted on
the design, delivery, use and management of public spaces in
four northern European cities—London, Copenhagen, Oslo
and Malmö. Whilst of contrasting scales,1 these cities are
similar climatically and each boasts a history common to
many European cities in which formal public spaces have
long been a staple of the urban fabric and range from grand
civic squares, to neighbourhood market places; parks and
gardens to the communal spaces of post-war housing estates.
They sit alongside the everyday streets and civic infrastruc-
ture of urban and suburban neighbourhoods.
The four are each relatively prosperous and growing cities
with mature systems of urban management. In this respect
the context is quite different to some other parts of Europe
where recession, alongside austerity, has been far deeper
and more sustained in its impacts (Christodoulou and Lada
2017, p. 144). It is also different from many cities beyond
Europe where private/public power relationships, systems of
urban management, and the emphasis on public space may
be profoundly different.
Despite their differences in scale and global and even
national significance, the four cities have in common a
recent history of embracing the importance of public space,
and public policy aspirations for public spaces that have
become ever more sophisticated. In contrast to earlier eras
where formal public spaces were largely created for civic,
welfare reasons, or for narrow private profit, today, as the
discussion will show, investment in public space is associ-
ated with a new and complex set of public policy priori-
ties around health, sustainability, resilience, liveability, the
social integration of diverse populations and, the economic
competitiveness of host cities. Urban renaissance (more or
less explicitly) has been a key theme of each city with many
new spaces being created or recreated within the existing
(and increasingly) dense urban fabric, and as part of a larger
public and private re-investment in urban areas.
The approach
The research underpinning this paper utilised a qualitative
heuristic dialogue to explore the topic, with programmed
face to face expert interchanges between the authors supple-
mented by the collection of local examples of the phenom-
ena explored, selected interviews with local stakeholders,
and then comparison across the cases study cities against a
preconceived analytical framework. No attempt was made
to systematically compare every aspect of the discussion
against all four cities, and instead issues are discussed,
1
  Respectively approximately 8.7, 2.4, 1.3 and 0.7 million people live
in the in the four metropolitan areas.
M. Carmona et al.
evidence cited, and comparisons made in a largely explora-
tory manner.
In this case, the framework chosen was the place-shaping
continuum set out by Carmona (2014a, b). The paper rep-
resents a journey across that continuum, from the design
and development, to the use and management of public
spaces, drawing out conclusions about the shifting power
relationships in the four cities during the austerity years.
Unfortunately, whilst each city has a rich history of public
space creation, space does not permit a full contextualisation
of the discussion within this sweep of history. Instead the
discussion begins with a brief introduction to the contempo-
rary politics and practices of public spaces of the four cities
during this neo-liberal era. Neither does space permit the
rehearsal of the extensive literature on the nature of public
space and how and for what purposes it is defined. Instead,
for the purposes of this research public space was simply
taken to mean all those parts of the city, regardless of own-
ership and management responsibility, to which the public
(typically) has free and unrestricted access.
The changing context of four cities
Agnostics and advocates
Analysis begins with a brief exploration, city by city, of the
changing and varying political and policy context for public
spaces and how these have responded to the drive for aus-
terity. As a political and policy concern, issues relating to
the provision and quality of public space have been on the
rise, globally. As De Magalhães and Carmona (2009, p. 111)
explain: “From civic, leisure or simply functional spaces
with an important, but to some extent discrete, part to play
in cities and urban life, public spaces have become urban
policy tools of a much wider and pervasive significance”,
often at the forefront of policy debates around liveability,
sustainability, social inclusion, economic competitiveness,
place image and culture.
Whilst some question the contemporary relevance of pub-
lic spaces “in an age of urban sprawl, multiple usage of pub-
lic space and proliferation of sites of political and cultural
expression” (Amin 2006), this has not generally been taken
up by politicians (either nationally or locally) for whom pub-
lic spaces are typically a binary concern. Either they are off
the agenda completely—a public space ‘agnostic view’—
and therefore of little relevance beyond their management
cost and maintenance liability, or they are a major opportu-
nity with far reaching economic, social, cultural, health and
environmental potentials—a public space ‘advocate view’.
Public space in an age of austerity
London
London, the largest of the four cities, demonstrates this
binary approach well and, reflecting the diversity of ini-
tiatives in recent years in the city, features heavily in the
comparison that follows. The 1980s and 90s was a time of
disinvestment and decline as regards the publicly owned
streets and spaces of the city which were largely viewed, in
a purely managerial sense, as traffic arteries. This changed
after 2000 and the election of the first London Mayor—Ken
Livingstone—when public spaces moved decisively up the
policy agenda. Livingstone argued that the quality of public
space had a direct impact on the city’s beauty, sustainability,
connectivity and safety—and therefore on its attractiveness
to investors—and promised to create or upgrade 100 public
spaces over 5 years. For Londoners this was undeniably a
period when a noticeable new embrace of public space was
apparent as café culture came to the city, but the complexi-
ties of delivering public spaces schemes meant that Living-
stone’s early ambition proved rash and only five schemes
were realised by the end of his tenure (Carmona 2012, p.
37).
Boris Johnson, the second mayor, came to power in
May 2008 just as the grip of austerity began to tighten. His
early emphasis was on leafy outer London, and he actively
embraced austerity, even before it began to bite nation-
ally (after 2010). Consequently, Johnson quickly set about
dismantling the high-profile public space programmes of
his predecessor, including a plan to re-design Parliament
Square, he disbanded Design for London (the Mayoral
design team), and announced the closure of the London
Development Agency; previously a major source of pro-
ject funding. Yet Johnson also inherited responsibility for
delivering the London Olympics in 2012 and stimulating the
housing market in London that had crashed spectacularly in
2009. These priorities, alongside his political concern for
outer London (notably their struggling high streets) and pen-
chant for innovative projects, meant that, despite contrary
signs at the start, he also quickly embraced a strategic public
spaces role for the city. In fact he continued to invest heavily
in public spaces throughout the austerity years (Carmona
2012, p. 38) (Fig. 1).
The third mayor—Sadiq Khan—has promised to continue
the focus on public spaces although with a stronger environ-
mental emphasis directed at reducing pollution, clutter and
congestion, and improving design.2 Begun under Johnson
but significantly bolstered from 2016 under Khan, much of
the discussion on London’s streets and spaces is increasingly
seen in health terms, with the launch of Healthy Streets for
London in early 2017 formalising a range of initiatives into
2
  http://www.sadiq​.londo​n/a_green​er_clean​er_londo​n
Fig. 1  Windrush Square, Brixton: Boris Johnson also benefitted
hugely from the legacy of work on public spaces conduced during the
Livingstone era, as, like the gift that keeps on giving, public space
projects continued to mature throughout the austerity years (Matthew
Carmona)
a long-term plan and directing the £2.1 Billion of streets
spending over the Mayoral term “towards delivering against
the Healthy Streets Indicators” (Transport for London 2017).
Copenhagen
After a period of urban decline in the 1970s and 80s, since
the 1990s Copenhagen has been in a strategic urban renewal
phase (Bisgaard 2010). In this, public space development
has played a major role not only in the city centre but also in
the revitalisation of residential neighbourhoods and, more
recently, in the redevelopment of post-industrial areas.
Indeed Copenhagen was one of the first cities to establish an
explicit public space advocate regime with the 2006 urban
space action plan (City of Copenhagen 2006a, b). By 2008,
Monocle named Copenhagen the best of the World’s most
Liveable cities (City of Copenhagen 2009, p. 3). 2008 was
also the year in which the global financial crisis hit Denmark
with a 7% fall in GDP in just a year and severe consequences
for the public finances. In parallel the Danish housing market
crashed, and it was not until 2012 that the market picked up
again (Realkreditrådet 2016).
Despite this, the city of Copenhagen maintained a pro-
active urban development policy and made extensive public
investments throughout the crisis years, specifically in the
design, construction and maintenance of public urban space.
In 2010, the city launched the initiative ‘Kickstart Copenha-
gen’ to “invest itself out of the crisis” and at the same time
raised the budget for public construction work to continue
developing “an attractive, growing city” and to create job
opportunities (Kickstart København 2010, p. 2). This built
on the city’s first urban life policy ‘Metropolis for People’

which set out a vision for urban life and public space devel-
opment with three main goals and measurable objectives: (i)
more urban life, (ii) more walking, and (iii) more people to
stay longer (City of Copenhagen 2009, p. 2). Theoretically
and methodologically the vision was based on the work of
Jan Gehl, whose office was consulted by the municipality
on the policy.
Although this vision remained intact throughout the cri-
sis years; the follow-up policy ‘Community Copenhagen’
in 2015 marked a significant shift towards more iterative
and co-creative processes. Where ‘Metropolis for Peo-
ple’ emphasised the provision of attractive public spaces
and measurable objectives for their performance; the cur-
rent policy focuses on creating possibilities for citizens
to become more engaged in the design and maintenance
of public spaces and to develop urban life activities in the
public realm. It advocates less control over the appearance
of public spaces and the activities taking place in them
and encourages “more of an edge” when compared to the
extremely designed and programmed public spaces of the
early 2000s (City of Copenhagen 2015a, p. 2). City brand-
ing still plays an important role in the current policy, but
Copenhagen now strives for a better everyday life experience
in its urban neighbourhood spaces with sustainable urban
development and resilience writ large as overarching objec-
tives for public space projects.
Oslo
Norway faired better than many European countries follow-
ing the 2008 financial crisis, using its huge sovereign wealth
fund to support the economy following a recession in 2009.
The period saw significant attention on the city’s water-
front areas, with much discussion about the role these were
playing in rebranding the city internationally (Røe 2015).
Western harbour developments, for example at Tjuvholmen,
were complemented by developments in the eastern harbour
characterized by landmark buildings (such as the Barcode
development), new public spaces (including a waterfront
promenade), and temporary and permanent arts and cul-
tural installations (e.g. the Opera House and Museum of
Modern Art). Whilst intended to increase the attractiveness
of the new areas, some argue that project have been unduly
targeted at affluent groups and exclude others (Bergsli 2015;
Røe 2015). Separately there has been a policy to encour-
age investment in specific deprived areas, notably the outer
eastern part of the city—Groruddalen. This area features
high-rise functionalist blocks from the 1960/70s and storage
and logistics areas, now with new outdoor spaces, parks, and
meeting places inserted between.
A strict densification policy reflects the city’s posi-
tion surrounded by green areas protected by national law
(Hanssen et  al. 2015) and this has increasingly led to a
M. Carmona et al.
tension between the desire for higher density housing and
for high-quality outdoor public spaces (Lipton 2004; Guttu
and Schmidt 2008). The situation has been exacerbated
by the financial situation and the resulting tight municipal
budgets which encouraged a sell off of property by vari-
ous state actors (railway, harbour, public transport lands,
etc.). The funds were invested in new and rehabilitated social
infrastructure for the city’s increasing population but have
resulted in an increasing shortage of municipal land for open
space as the city becomes more compact. To a greater extent
than ever before the city authorities now rely on the market
to deliver such space, and to do so have developed a range
of more sophisticated design governance tools (Selvig 2015;
Sirowy 2015). These include:
• A Plan for Public Spaces and Meeting Places, adopted in
2009
• Informal area-based plans for public spaces (VPORs) to
deliver blue/green structures and public spaces
• Economic models for sharing the cost of public spaces
among different property owners in VPOR areas
• Development agreements between the city and property
owners covering responsibility for funding new public
spaces.
From 2015, a new left-leaning city government has focused
on the environment. As part of a plan to slash emissions
of greenhouse gases by 50% by 2020 (compared to 1990
levels), a ban is to be instigated on private vehicles in the
city centre.3 The car-free zone will be the biggest in Europe
with parking-free streets becoming new high-quality public
spaces. From the 1990s on, Oslo has increasingly been in
the camp of public space advocate, but if the current plans
come to fruition, the changes to the city centre will be far
more dramatic than anything attempted before.
Malmö
Like Norway, the global financial crisis affected Sweden less
than other OECD countries (OECD 2011), but Sweden had
entered an age of austerity long before following its indus-
trial crisis of the early 1990s. In Malmö, the smallest of the
cities examined in this paper, the earlier crises led the social
democratic Mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, to instigate a new strategy
designed to move Malmö from an industrial society agnostic
about questions of urban quality to a knowledge economy
where such issues matter (Dannestam 2009; Nylund 2014).
The resulting urban policy led to significant investments in
the city, including the establishment of new public spaces
3
  https​://www.thegu​ardia​n.com/envir​onmen​t/2015/oct/19/oslo-moves​
-to-ban-cars-from-city-centr​e-withi​n-four-years​
Public space in an age of austerity
Fig. 2  Triangeln, Möllevången: a new public space dating from 2010
in the centrally located dense working class district of Möllevången
(Matthew Carmona)
that have been acknowledged internationally for their qual-
ity (Fig. 2), and that have helped to attract high-income
groups from surrounding municipalities. During the 2000s,
municipal investments in technical infrastructure amounted
to around two billion SEK each year (from a total annual
municipal budget of 17 billion SEK—Malmö stad 2016).
To finance this, the city sold the Sydkraft public power plant
(Holgersson 2014, p. 10) and utilised money from the pen-
sion fund set aside for its pre-1998 employees.4
While these economic assets enabled the city to transform
itself, arguably they also contributed to growing social ine-
qualities with private investment eschewing less prosperous
parts of the city (Salonen 2012; Andersson et al. 2007), and
the city unable to afford the new social infrastructure that the
resulting population growth—2.6% annually (Malmö stad
2015a)—demands.5 By 2012, the earlier funding was used
up and from 2013 the city was forced to borrow new money
and to lever its extensive land holdings as an economic asset
(Malmö stad 2014, p. 7; 2016, p. 33). This sparked debates
about the many competing demands that the city faces and
in 2013 the Social Democrat, Karin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, was
elected as Mayor and announced that her priorities would be
to invest in the social infrastructure of the city.
Despite the change, decisions taken in the past restrain
current choices, and discussion of the Malmö case in this
paper largely focuses on the city’s most recent public space
project, Malmö Live, completed in 2015. This centrally
located concert hall, congress centre and hotel followed a
protracted planning process and raised questions (also appar-
ent in the other cities), concerning who is public space for.
At its heart was the idea of establishing a new public space
4
  interview, Economy Director, City of Malmö.
5
  interview, Manager of Budgetary Control, City of Malmö.
Fig. 3  Malmö Live, University Island: In the foreground is the con-
cert hall with 1700 seats next to the congress center with a capac-
ity for 1500 participants, and in the background is the hotel with 444
rooms (Tyke Tykesson)
in the form of an urban living room for the city. The notion
was based on the idea of a ‘Fourth Place’ which consult-
ants Per Riisom and Hanne Beier Sörensen had advocated to
the city as the logical evolution of Ray Oldenburg’s (2000)
concept of the Third Place. This envisaged a form of hybrid
space that was at one and the same time both public and
private but accessible for all (Malmö stadsbyggnadskontor
2009, p. 28; p. 6). The strong focus on the role of Malmö
Live as a meeting place reflected the determination of the
municipality to use this new arena as a test bed for the idea.
Agnostics to advocates
With different trajectories, all four of the case study cities
have witnessed a journey from an agnostic (managerial)
perspective to a role as advocate with regard to the merits
of public space investment, sometimes for classic entrepre-
neurial reasons (Biddulph 2011), but increasingly for social
ones. Whilst this belief seems to have persisted during the
austerity years, the discussion of the changing political and
policy context of the four cities indicates that it has also
been evolving as part of the larger neo-liberal project that
Peck and Tickell (2002, p. 381) characterise (through grit-
ted teeth) as the “commmonsense of the times”. Thus just
as the wider political-economy of each city has continued to
evolve, so to have approaches to public space.
The discussion that follows pulls this apart and, by com-
paratively identifying trends in the design, development, use
and management practises across the four cities, determines
whether there are any significant common threads that can
be detected during the austerity years.

Fig. 4  Superkilen features a daring design through its bright red
urban carpet, black plaza and green belt, each furnished with urban
elements from around the word mirroring the multi-cultural popula-
tion of the neighbourhood (Matthew Carmona)
Design
Space as spectacle
As already noted, public space quality is often placed in the
vanguard of perceived needs for cities to compete with each
other globally, and the architectural competition is a com-
mon means to achieve this (Strebel and Silberberger 2017).
Malmö Live represents a classic case; part of the city’s
attempts to re-position itself economically (Fig. 3). Here,
a design/development competition was instigated to select
the scheme (Malmö stad 2010a, p. 26), although, reflecting
the straightened times, the winning solution also turned out
to be the cheapest (600 million SEK—Sydsvenskan 2015).
Pre-crisis, the City of Copenhagen had a major focus on
developing and renewing public spaces through ambitious
design schemes based on international competitions. Its
2006, urban space action plan prescribed a double strategy
of metropolitan projects in the city centre and local projects
in residential neighbourhoods to upgrade existing areas and
create a number of new, unique urban spaces (City of Copen-
hagen 2006a, b, p. 12). Among many spectacular and costly
examples are six strategic projects in the Metropolzone area;
the renovation and re-design of the Købmagergade pedes-
trian street; and the redesign of Nørrebro Station and Israels
Square. During this process even local projects exhibited
a tendency towards spectacular design and international
branding, including the acclaimed public park Superkilen
in Nørrebro (Fig. 4) and the re-design of a series of pub-
lic spaces along Sønder Boulevard in Vesterbro. Although
conceived before 2008, most of these were constructed and
opened in the midst of the financial crisis.
In London, playing on the then Mayor’s love of the dra-
matic (he funded, for example, the Emirates Air Line cable
M. Carmona et al.
Fig. 5  The  new ‘public space’—Sky Garden—on top of the Walkie
Talkie tower negotiated as part of the planning permission. Free
to enter, but you need to book in advance, obtain a ticket, and pass
through security (Matthew Carmona)
car across the Thames), the crisis years encouraged develop-
ers and others to see the potential of public spaces as places
of spectacle. In 2011, for example, the Mayor was quick to
champion Gensler’s ultimately unrealised plans for a float-
ing boardwalk along the Thames, plans that were criticised
for ‘privatising’ parts of the river. He also approved revised
plans for the now realised Walkie Talkie tower in the City of
London that, in exchange for the planning permission, deliv-
ered London’s first ticketed ‘public’ space at the top of the
36 storey tower (see Fig. 5). Elsewhere he strongly backed
the Garden Bridge Trust with £60 million of public money
to deliver its garden bridge across the Thames; a scheme that
some argue was ostensibly a private tourist attraction rather
than a public space (Minton 2014) and which has since been
abandoned by Johnson’s successor—Sadiq Khan. Each, for
good or ill, extended traditional notions of public space (Cho
et al. 2016) whilst creating or envisaging new ways of expe-
riencing the city with associated knock-on public interest
and/or commercial benefits.
Investing in the ordinary
Whilst spaces of spectacle continue to be produced in each
of the cities, a second trend has focussed on ‘everyday’
spaces. London represents a case-in-point where many of
the city’s streets have suffered from decades of priority being
given to traffic over people (Gehl Architects 2004). Whilst
there have been individual examples of re-prioritising space
in favour of pedestrians (e.g., Kensington High Street), only
recently has the approach been mainstreamed by Transport
for London. Thus, since 2014, London’s streets have been
re-classified against a nine-part matrix that, to varying
degrees, recognises each as a ‘place’ as well as a corridor
Public space in an age of austerity
Fig. 6  Bjerkedalen Park, has undergone a renewal with new walk-
ways, abundant plant life, a café and spaces for activities and recrea-
tion. The Hovinbekken brook has been opened up and flows through
the entire park (Helge Høifødt)
for ‘movement’),6 and this will now define design standards
across the city. Gradually (very gradually), a re-balancing of
ordinary street space is occurring (TfL 2013, 2016).
While Copenhagen even raised its budget for public urban
space projects during the austerity years, the city is increas-
ingly moving away from high-profile public realm schemes
towards everyday maintenance and functional adaptations
to existing public spaces. This marks a significant political
shift towards what is labelled ‘everyday-life-functionality’,7
with politicians preferring to be seen solving the city’s more
tangible urban problems such as flooding or safe cycling.
However, this does not mean that the city now only pur-
sues technical solutions to urban problems. Investments in
cloudburst management, for example, are being tied in with
the development of more attractive public spaces in inno-
vative ways, including Copenhagen’s first climate resilient
neighbourhood; Skt. Kjelds (City of Copenhagen 2012a)
and public spaces and recreational opportunities are being
weaved into the planning of bicycle pathways across the city.
A similar multi-functional approach is seen in Oslo where
the health impacts of public space design are now well estab-
lished as a driver of practice, leading to a strong focus on the
recreational opportunities provided by public spaces. This
emphasis was reinforced in statute in 2008 and 2011 and is
increasingly reflected in design strategies that include the
instillation of outdoor gym equipment, and the integration of
blue/green spaces for ecological, recreational, aesthetic and
management purposes (Saglie and Thoren 2014) (Fig. 6).8
Green corridors (marka), for example, are being planned to
6
  https​://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/borou​ghs/stree​t-types​?intcm​p=24919​.
7
  Interview, Head of public space development, City of Copenhagen.
8
  https​://no.m.wikip​edia.org/wiki/Fil:Bjerk​edale​n_med_bro.JPG
extend from the inner city to the surrounding outdoor rec-
reational areas to encourage walking, cycling and recreation
(Ministry of Modernization and Local Government 2016).
The challenges of densification
Public spaces are also playing a key role in the everyday
processes of growth and densification across the cities. With
their tightly drawn growth boundaries, Oslo and London
exemplify this. In Oslo, the need to redevelop ex-industrial
areas frequently begins with the establishment of public
spaces, but because densification is leading to a greater
concentration of people living in inner city areas, spaces
are now subject to more intensive use for a greater range of
purposes (mobility, play, barbecues, events, swimming, jog-
ging, etc.). Building at higher densities has also put pressure
on the provision of private (including communal) outdoor
spaces in new residential developments, particularly in cen-
tral locations where prices have been rising dramatically. As
it is a political goal to build more flats, developers have been
arguing for a higher proportion of small flats (35 m2) and for
an easing of requirements relating to sunshine penetration
into private outdoor spaces (Boligvekstutvalget 2016). They
argue instead that the provision of public outdoor spaces can
replace the need, sparking debates about the appropriate size
and distance (from homes) of any such provision.
In London, successive iterations of the London Plan
have supported densification in areas well served by public
transport and in the city’s strategic opportunity areas, and a
quid pro quo for this has been the provision of high-quality
public spaces. The results have sometimes proved contro-
versial, including the 2009 re-design of Chelsea Barracks
where a scheme by Richard Rogers became mired in contro-
versy following a damming intervention by Prince Charles
and was subsequently replaced by traditional terraces and
mansion blocks around a series of garden squares (Adams
2010). In 2017, battle raged over rival plans to redevelop
the huge Mount Pleasant sorting office. On the one hand,
contemporary medium and higher rise blocks and a linear
park was proposed, and this was pitched against, on the
other, traditional mansion blocks and a central classically
designed square. Elsewhere, much larger regeneration pro-
jects at Stratford and Nine Elms are being planned around
the city’s first significant new urban parks since Victorian
times, whilst the regeneration (aka replacement) of post-war
housing estates are substituting unloved indeterminate land
oozes, as Jane Jacobs (1961) once christened them, with
diverse ‘contained’ green infrastructure that sometimes blurs
the boundaries between public and private (GLA 2015, p.
33). This gradual densification of the sorts of low-density
cities that predominate in Northern Europe means that pub-
lic spaces are having to work a lot harder than they have
before.

Development
Big business, ‘private’ spaces
Traditionally, public space is thought of as a public good,
paid for, delivered and managed by the public purse, but all
four cities demonstrated that this was frequently not the case.
In Copenhagen, for example, a number of public–private
development models for public spaces are common in terms
of project organisation, financing and ownership. Most of
the city’s high-profile branded public spaces were initiated
by the municipality as public projects but developed together
with private foundations who have played a decisive role
in the programming and design of these spaces. Lokale-og
Anlægsfonden, for example, which was established by Dan-
ish sports organisations, has been leading on the provision
of recreational spaces for activity, fitness and play, while
Realdania has co-financed a broad range of significant and
strategic public space projects. Since the 1990s, many large-
scale urban redevelopment projects have been led by the
publicly owned but profit-oriented urban development com-
pany, By og Havn,9 or entirely by private development com-
panies, including Carlsberg City. In such places, increasing
attention has been paid to ‘establishing the place’ through
developing public spaces that encourage a more public life.
Malmö Live represents perhaps the quintessential pub-
lic/private project, all the more significant because of the
impact of this very large project on the smallest of the cities
discussed in this paper. In 2010, the city council accepted
an agreement (Malmö stad 2010b) in which Skanska AB
took responsibility for construction of the 906 million SEK
project (Malmö stad 2010b, p. 13). Amongst other factors
leading to the rise in costs was an 18% increase in the size of
the concert hall to better accommodate the key public space
(Sydsvenskan 2015), the foyer. This was envisaged to be an
Urban Common, or a meeting place furnished with sofas and
armchairs and free Wi-Fi, where people could meet without
consuming: a ‘new living room for the city’. The escalation
in costs led to questions in the local media and a political
crisis, with many arguing that in times of austerity, the pro-
ject was costing too much. The case demonstrates a key issue
regarding who pays for what, and what are the benefits that
will return to the city’s inhabitants for the liabilities they are
taking on. In other words what is the value of public space.
Similar debates are seen in London where, as home-
grown funding for development has become scarcer in the
austerity years, footloose international money has flooded
in to fill the gap (Pitcher 2013). This is shaping many of the
largest development projects in the city, including three new
Westfield shopping centres (built since 2008) and many new
9
  http://www.byogh​avn.dk/engli​sh.aspx
M. Carmona et al.
high-density and often high-rise housing and office devel-
opments such as around Battersea Power Station. In such
places, arguments rage around whether associated ‘private’
public spaces are too commercial, corporate, securitized,
sanitized and exclusionary in feel, and therefore, not really
public at all, with some arguing that the austerity years have
seen a gradual escalation of such privatisation processes
(Garrett 2015). In reality the resulting privately owned and
managed public spaces continue to be as varied (in experi-
ential terms) as their purely public and pseudo-public coun-
terparts (Carmona and Wunderlich 2012), and, in common
with the other cities, new privately managed public spaces
are always shaped by a negotiation between commercial
interests and regulatory policies and practices.
Valuing the temporary and exploratory
Arguably, debates relating to the privatisation of public
space are so hotly pursued precisely because such interven-
tions, for good or ill, are so permanent. Yet increasingly both
public authorities and private developers are interested in
temporary interventions that bring sites into socially benefi-
cial and/or profitable use whilst they are waiting for develop-
ment to start or for the economy recover (Ferreri 2015). In
London, such ‘meanwhile’ uses are also seen as means to
shape perceptions of the emerging place during the devel-
opment process, for example, the swimming pond and skip
garden that featured amongst the programme of temporary
spaces animating yet to be developed parts of the huge Kings
Cross redevelopment. Reflecting on this move to the tem-
porary, Tonkiss (2013, p. 315) warns: “As useful as mean-
while uses can be, it is important to note how quickly the
pop-up can become the tear-down, and the fine margin that
at times separate the pioneer use from the urban land-grab,
or the creative incubator from the developer demonstration
project”. But Kamvasinou (2017, p. 205) has argued that in
challenging times, these sorts of interventions “enable new
types of creative conversations to happen between parties
traditionally considered in opposition” and beyond the short-
term impact of the meanwhile use itself can and do lead to
better development outcomes over the long-term. In London
temporary interventions have been used to encourage: new
ways of using the city, such as traffic-free days on Regent’s
Street; new ways of seeing the city, including the sea of
ceramic poppies that slowly grew at the Tower of London
throughout 2014; new revenue opportunities, through the
more intensive use of underutilised spaces such as car parks
for farmers markets at the weekend; or for the testing out of
new ideas (Fig. 7).
In Copenhagen, many private development projects came
to an abrupt halt in 2009 and landowners had to seek alter-
native strategies to make their sites profitable. The Carls-
berg City project, for example, has been transforming the
Public space in an age of austerity
Fig. 7  Exploratory cycleway layouts (to the right of the image) in
London’s Bloomsbury, implemented at minimal cost prior to more
permanent investments (to the left of the image) being made (Mat-
thew Carmona)
Fig. 8  In the Rope Forest, an open space underneath a large roof con-
struction was filled with gymnastic ropes (Anne Wagner)
site of the former Carlsberg breweries into a mixed urban
neighbourhood since 2006, but following the collapse of
the housing market in 2009 alternative strategies to activate
and ‘brand’ the area were introduced through a new tempo-
rary public space strategy. The public initiative Kickstart
København (2010, p. 11) supported the initiative financially
with the intention “to create life and activity for the resi-
dents in the area until the construction of a new city district”
(Fig. 8). The resulting spaces became very popular and were
promoted for their experimental approach to urban design
(Hausenberg et  al. 2011). Later, independently funded
activities moved into the area including a climbing obstacle
course, a container city flea market, a beach bar, and a range
of cultural institutions; all helping to give rise to a distinct
Carlsberg culture. Once the market took off again and devel-
opment activities kicked off, most of the temporary projects
Fig. 9  Western Habour, with its carefully designed public (and pri-
vate) spaces (Matthew Carmona)
disappeared to the regret of many local citizens, leading to
public debate over the value and objectives of temporary
projects for urban development.
Cost, up for negotiation
The Carlsberg case raises a further key issue, if public space
projects help to ‘make the place’, either permanently or
temporarily, and thereby add to the profitability of private
development projects, who should pay for them? This issue
is grappled with across the cities including in Malmö where
the municipality has a right under public law to require
property owners to pay a street compensation cost; in other
words a contribution to any improvement to streets and other
common land, as long as the cost is ‘reasonable’ as deter-
mined through negotiation. Following the sale of assets, the
municipality was able to cover infrastructure costs in the
Western Harbour prior to the financial crisis; believed at the
time to be a necessary precondition for developers to invest
in the area. Developers, however, subsequently found a ready
market for their products and owners have also earned good
money when within two years the price of their flats dou-
bled10 (Fig. 9). Now, with the municipality in debt at a time
of population growth, adequate private contributions to pub-
lic space are becoming ever more necessary and an investi-
gation was launched in 2018 with the aim of clarifying the
proper basis for negotiations on public contributions towards
large development projects.11
Norwegian planning legislation enables a strong formal
role for the municipalities but private developers also have
substantial power through their ability to share in the costs
of public spaces (Nordahl 2015). These types of partnerships
10
  interview, Economy Director, City of Malmö.
11
  interview, Manager Budgetary Control, City of Malmö.

are regulated by development agreements under public law
which allows municipalities to create juridical binding plan-
ning provisions which zone areas as public space. Under
these provisions the Oslo Municipal Plan for Public Space
and Meeting Places (City of Oslo 2009) includes a bind-
ing requirement that privately developed projects exceed-
ing 20,000 m2 should reserve a minimum of 5% land for
public space. Some of the resulting spaces end up being
privately owned and managed whilst others are managed by
the municipality.
Negotiation is also the key in London, with major devel-
opment subject to bespoke planning agreements. Typically,
such negotiations encompass a wide range of public goods
from schools to roads, and streets to social infrastructure.
In such complex negotiations, there is a danger that public
space issues are given inadequate attention and that spaces
are then either sub-standard when completed or long-term
rights and responsibilities are inadequately resolved. Car-
mona (2014b) has argued that there is need for the Mayor to
adopt a clear and simple charter of public space rights and
responsibilities to cover the whole city and this idea was
picked up in the 2017 draft London Plan which promises
that the Mayor will bring forward a Public London Charter
(Mayor of London 2017: Policy D7). As things stand, how-
ever, each of the 33 boroughs (and the Mayor) do their own
thing and in these negotiations (particularly in the immediate
post-crisis years) developers are in a strong position.
Infrastructure as place making
The Malmö Live case encapsulates a further key trend, of
delivering public space projects as a by-product of invest-
ments in local or strategic infrastructure. In this case the
co-location of the concert hall and the congress centre was
promoted from the start. The justification for this, however,
changed over time, from one focussed on saving the munici-
pality money (Malmö stad 2008, p. 8) to one focussed on
natural synergies and the creation of new jobs and economic
growth (Malmö stad 2015b, pp. 6–7). The emergence of the
foyer or Urban Common represented a natural development
of this as both facilities would feed into it and help to further
the new knowledge-based vision for the city. In Copenhagen,
public space redevelopment is increasingly being financed
through investments in local infrastructure directly effecting
public space. For example, up to 2033, the city will invest
3.8 billion Danish Crowns in cloudburst management (City
of Copenhagen 2012b).
In London, although public expenditure has been dramati-
cally cut back during the austerity years, expenditure on new
public space projects has faired relatively well care of its
association with expenditure on the 2012 Olympic Games,
and latterly on public transport. Across England, whilst
funding to local government reduced on average by 25%
M. Carmona et al.
Fig. 10  The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford—post games
(Matthew Carmona)
between 2010 and 2014 (NAO 2014) new transport infra-
structure spending in London has been shielded by the need
to address London’s growth and an historic backlog in infra-
structure investment. During this period also, Government
has been on a journey. In the past, it viewed such infrastruc-
ture as costly bits of technical kit to be delivered at minimum
cost to the public purse and with little concern for the local
impact. Only now is a realisation dawning that such invest-
ments are pieces of city building with huge place-making
potential well beyond the infrastructure itself (Savills 2014,
pp. 6–7). The commitment to carefully design a new public
realm around the 40 new Crossrail (Elizabeth Line) stations
soon to be opening across the city represents the clearest
demonstration of this thinking, whilst the range of new and
enhanced spaces associated with the Olympics have been
transformational in parts of East London (Fig. 10), dem-
onstrating the potential of infrastructure-led public space.
Use
From utilitarian to leisure and specialist uses
Whilst the gradual re-balancing of space (already refereed
to) in favour of pedestrians and cyclists is likely to be a
long-term trend across the four cities, other pressures are
also acting to change how public spaces are used. Particu-
larly pervasive is the impact of the internet on almost every
aspect of life, and most particularly on shopping habits and
on the consequential viability of traditional mixed (shop-
ping) streets (Carmona 2015). In London, one consequence
is that many local shopping streets are slowly moving from a
utilitarian retail or service (e.g. banking) function for every-
day needs to a leisure and more specialist range of functions,
Public space in an age of austerity
including catering to the tastes of new immigrants to the city
(Wrigley and Lambiri 2014, p. 19). Coffee shops are spread-
ing like wildfire and pop-up coffee venders are appearing
on busy street corners leading some to wonder when ‘peak
coffee’ will be reached (Haughton 2015). The changes have
increased in pace since the crash of 2008 when spending
power fell dramatically and increasingly spend moved online
(ONS 2016). All this is changing both why people visit key
public spaces in the city and how they function.
In Oslo, there has been a focus on strengthening tradi-
tional shopping streets by upgrading the streets from trans-
port routes to public spaces. A special project, Bylivspros-
jektet (Urban public life), has been initiated with the aim
of securing a vibrant urban life in the central area when
the car-free zone is established. However, in newer areas of
the city this has been more difficult as retail is concentrated
in internal privately owned and managed shopping centres.
Storo storsenter in Nydalen, for example, is a mixed office
and residential area with a high student population, but out-
side of office hours its streets are quickly deserted with the
exception of areas along the river which are part of the blue/
green network and popular for walking, cycling and jog-
ging (Selvig 2015). At the same time numbers of cafés have
multiplied and pavement areas have increasingly been taken
over for outdoor sitting, giving life and vitality to many tra-
ditional streets. These trends are particularly evident in the
recently gentrified areas of the city such as Grünerløkka in
the inner eastern part of Oslo.
In Copenhagen, the move towards better and more heav-
ily utilised public spaces continued throughout the austerity
years and today Copenhagen’s public squares, parks, out-
door cafes streets and pathways are packed with people on
warm days. This is confirmed by the urban life data collected
between 2010 and 2015 that demonstrates an increase in
both facilities and the use of public spaces (City of Copenha-
gen 2015b). For instance, outdoor seating permits increased
by more than 100% in inner and central neighbourhoods dur-
ing this time whilst the number of events increased between
34 and 80% depending on the district. All this is seen by the
city as an enhancement to general quality of urban life. The
published Urban Life Account follows local improvement
projects from before to after completion and draws the broad
conclusion that developing attractive public spaces, and cre-
ating more and better possibilities for leisure activities and
seating increases the number of people using public spaces
(City of Copenhagen 2015b).
A tale of two cities (and different populations)
If, for some users, public spaces have become places of lei-
sure, for others this is not the case. The goal of Malmö Live,
for example, was to create “a meeting place where people
with different experiences, knowledge and ideas can meet
in cultural diversity” (Malmö stad 2008, p. 6) and so far
the response from the inhabitants in Malmö has been over-
whelming (Malmö Live Konserthus 2016). Observational
studies of the foyer reveal that this space is in constant use
and is acting as a new meeting place within the city. Users,
however, are mostly young and seemingly well educated
who use the comfortable sofas with its free wi-fi as a place
to work. In this sense, the space is not working as an Urban
Common (as was originally intended). Instead, the exclusive
feeling of the interior and constant surveillance by staff act
to keep large groups of inhabitants outside. The reality is
that this space was not primarily designed for ordinary citi-
zens but instead for the creative classes who “want to live in
cities that can offer a rich cultural life, a lively atmosphere
and a tolerant milieu” (Malmö stadsbyggnadskontor 2008,
p. 8). In this narrow way, it is clearly successful, although
the question remains, should public money be invested in
spaces that promote economic growth if the benefits do not
trickle down to the poor. As the Mayor has admitted, the
huge investment has meant that other projects have been
postponed (Sydsvenskan 2015).
London, as a global city, has long been considered a mag-
net for the sorts of creative classes that Malmö is focussed
on attracting. Arguments have raged about the gentrification
impacts of these populations and about provision for those
at the opposite end of the social spectrum. The differential
impact can be seen in the state of the city’s traditional retail
streets. Whilst some (in affluent areas) thrive, others (in less
affluent areas or on busy trafficked roads) have been strug-
gling to adapt to the new realities of the online marketplace,
large multi-national discount retailers, and gentrified popula-
tions seeking the different (leisure) experience already dis-
cussed, and who are prepared to travel. The fate of many of
London’s traditional street markets is a strong bell-weather
of this, and have either declined and all but disappeared dur-
ing the austerity years (Jarvis 2015) or have had to adapt
and find a new income as part of the leisure economy. The
contrasting fates of Borough and Petticoat Lane markets,
both on the edges of the City of London, but serving very
different populations has been tracked for over 10 years by
Kim (2017). This work reveals the stark story of adapt and
survive or fail to adapt and go under.
The rise in visible homelessness has also been dramatic,
with changes in migration patterns across Europe, austerity-
led reductions in benefits entitlements in the UK, and cuts in
services for the homeless and those with mental health diffi-
culties, all leading to significant rises in rough sleepers (Cri-
sis 2016) (Fig. 11). Associated rises in begging and arrests
(up 90% according to some estimates—Watts 2014) are also
contributing to stark and very public contrasts between haves
and have-nots.
In Oslo, the presence of beggars is a relatively new
phenomenon, but in recent years begging, mainly by a

Fig. 11  The rise in rough sleepers represents a direct and highly vis-
ible impact of austerity (Matthew Carmona)
sub-section of the Rumanian community, has become far
more common. This has spurred a public debate about rights
in urban public spaces, and what types of use are or are not
acceptable. Whilst some politicians on the city council have
argued for forbidding begging in public spaces, many others,
and most citizens, have come out against this view.
Reasserting democratic space
Since 2008, demonstrations against austerity politics in
Europe have reconfirmed the critical democratic role of
public space. In London, protest and demonstration remains
a regular occurrence, with the Occupy and Stop the War
camps of 2011/12 forcefully re-asserting the historic role of
public space for demonstration and political purposes (Tonk-
iss 2013, p. 315). Eventually, the legal limits of such protests
were tested in the courts and the camps began to disappear as
legislation effecting Parliament Square was redefined12 and
elsewhere rights to protest and of association under the 1998
Human Rights Act were shown not to extend to the right to
occupation. Consequently, the early light touch policing and
tolerance of such activities, which were largely peaceful, has
been replaced with more active and rapid intervention as and
when deemed necessary. By contrast, the rights and wrongs
of the 2011 riots which affected large parts of London in a
far more dramatic and disturbing manner remain contested.
Under Mayor Boris Johnson they nevertheless helped to
drive significant public funds in the direction of the most
affected areas, much of which was focussed on improve-
ments to the physical built environment of the spaces that
had been targeted.
12
  via the Policy Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011.
M. Carmona et al.
Fig. 12  Verdensparken (World park), Furuset, an upgrading of post-
war green space to create a park attractive to different uses and the
area’s multi-cultural inhabitants, all based on an exemplary participa-
tory design process (Kommunal - og Moderniserings Departementet,
Ministry of Modernization and Local Democracy)
In Copenhagen, there is an attempt to strike a balance
between spaces for all and spaces for more specific uses, as
well as the need to include marginalised groups in the public
space programme. The approach deliberately recognises the
multifunctionality of space and that encounters with ‘the
other’ is a quality in itself. Thus, the city promotes public
spaces that not only engage the populace at large but also
allocate room for more specific uses. Funding bodies such
as Lokale og Anlægsfonden support public space designs
that promote more active everyday life through facilities
for football, play, fitness, basketball, skating, parkour and
other activities. By way of contrast, there are instances of
organised citizen groups that have been allowed to adopt
sections of public spaces as semi-private urban gardens, as
has occurred in Byhaven 2200 in the Nørrebro Park,13 whilst
in Enghave Plads a group of heavy drinkers were invited to
design their own public space in collaboration with the artist
Kenneth Balfelt (Socialministeriet 2010, pp. 44–55).
In Oslo, such an inclusive view of public space was
firmly established in the legally binding Municipal Plan
for Public Spaces and Meeting-Places (City of Oslo 2009).
In the plan, the focus is on strengthening local attachment,
place identity and social life in spaces that are important to
local communities with a special emphasis on groups with
low mobility.14 As the Oslo Head of parks puts it: “Earlier
people promenaded in the park, now people do their exer-
cise, walk their dog, have picnics, and sunbathe. People find
13
  http://www.byhav​en220​0.dk/
14
  https ​ : //www.flick ​ r.com/photo ​ s /kmdep ​ / 26911 ​ 9 0055 ​ 3 /in/album​
-72157​66897​73981​32/
Public space in an age of austerity
Fig. 13  Tjuvholmen, on Oslo’s western harbour (Matthew Carmona)
their favourite and use it like their own garden. The park no
longer belongs to the municipality, it belongs to you and me.
And we use it very differently. We might well say that the
park has been democratized” (City of Oslo 2016) (Fig. 12).
Management
Caring for the everyday physical fabric (public
and private)
In London (unlike Copenhagen), the first cuts to be made
when the public finances got tight were to the budgets for
managing the city’s public spaces; cuts that have fallen dis-
proportionately on those living in the most deprived areas
(Hastings et al. 2015, p. 9). Whilst at first this largely went
unnoticed, the impact is cumulative as revealed in official
statistics relating to the dramatic increase in potholes and
associated accidents on the city’s streets (Williams 2016).
As decline in the public physical fabric sets in, so potentially
does the closely associated wellbeing of citizens who now
experience an uglier and seemingly less loved environment,
leading to a stronger desire amongst commercial interests
to manage new spaces themselves (London Assembly 2011,
p. 22).
Underpinning some of these trends, across Europe, are
the New public management approaches as applied to pub-
lic spaces, that are so strongly associated with the politics
and practices of neo-liberalism (De Magalhães and Carmona
2007). In Oslo, the management of public spaces and parks
has been progressively outsourced. When first mooted,
this raised concerns because of the unique competences
that already existed in the public sector. However, with the
exception of complaints relating to the prosaic task of clear-
ing snow and spreading grit on icy pavements, the policy
has been implemented without controversy. The city also
has an increasing range of public activities occurring on
private land and the private management of publicly acces-
sible space has occurred more often. A study of manage-
ment practices in Tjuvholmen (Fig. 13), for example, shows
a very strict management regime, where graffiti and litter
is quickly removed, repairs are done almost immediately
and green areas are very well kept (Murphy 2017), although
there have been tensions. In this new and exclusive neigh-
bourhood on the Oslo waterfront, the public have access to
facilities for swimming in the fjord which is popular on hot
summer days. In 2015, however, complaints from residents
led to restrictions being placed on swimming after 8 pm.
Following a local newspaper campaign a re-think was forced
and a relaxation of the rules occurred which are now only
enforced after 11 pm.
Similar debates about access to and rights over privately
owned public spaces and the tendency for management
regimes to be over officious in their enforcement of privately
defined management codes also regularly feature in the Lon-
don and national press. Concern that “In an age of austerity
… Budget pressures on local authorities are increasingly
leaving the management of public space in the hands of
developers” (London Assembly 2011, p. 9), led in 2011 to
an enquiry by the London Assembly into such practices.
Whilst the inquiry concluded that greater attention should
be given in policy to ensuring a consistent consideration of
management issues at the time planning permission is given,
it also argued that “private ownership or management of
public space is not, in itself, a cause for concern” (London
Assembly 2011, p. 11).
Space as empowerment
In Copenhagen, significant efforts have been made to engage
citizens in the creation of new public spaces, including
Superkilen (see Fig. 4). This, like many public space pro-
jects was part of a larger area renewal effort, co-financed by
national government and the local municipality, although
increasingly with contributions from private foundations.
The neighbourhood-based five-year area renewal initiatives
develop vision plans and public space strategies one neigh-
bourhood at a time and in close dialogue with local resi-
dents, neighbourhood associations and other stakeholders.
In the southern harbour, for example, temporary projects
have been deployed as a way to test and promote new ideas
for public spaces as a tool to include residents in their design
and making and as a method to foster local empowerment
and nurture new collaborative models for their management

Fig. 14  The Line art walk, from the O2 to the Queen Elizabeth Olym-
pic Park, here Damien Hirst’s Sensation acting as an unintended play-
thing (Matthew Carmona)
(City of Copenhagen 2015c). The political ambition of the
Community Copenhagen strategy aims to promote greater
local engagement and democratic processes but also to
achieve increased citizen responsibility for public spaces.
While not expressed in the strategy, there is also an ambi-
tion to reduce the cost of maintenance by encouraging more
citizen-driven caretaking.
In the UK, a second narrative of community empower-
ment and localism has accompanied that of austerity. Some
see this as a cynical attempt to paper over the cracks left by
cuts in public services (Hambleton 2011) but community
and local action has certainly flourished in some of the gaps.
Notably this has included significant numbers of commu-
nity groups now involved in green space management across
London (Bawden 2016), such as the Rocky Park community
garden in Bethnal Green where volunteers have transformed
an unloved hang-out into a productive space for flowers and
vegetables. Elsewhere, crowd funding is being used to inno-
vate new projects as diverse as The Line art walk along the
River Lee (Fig. 14) and the proposed Coal Line urban park
utilising disused coal sidings in Peckham. At a larger scale,
the voluntary ‘20’s plenty for us’ campaign is encouraging
communities to demand slower speed limits on residential
roads, and by 2017 had convinced nine of London’s 33 bor-
oughs to adopt 20 mph speed limits across their entire local
roads network.15
15
  http://www.20spl​enty.org/20_s_plent​y_for_londo​n_updat​e_sep_16
.   https​://oslob​ysykk​el.no/en/about​.
M. Carmona et al.
Management by cappuccino (sponsorship
and advertising)
Beyond enlisting the direct help of citizens, tighter budgets
for the management of public spaces have left local authori-
ties increasingly looking to external sources of income to
help fill some of the gaps, notably by exploiting commer-
cialisation opportunities. Although some hysterical reports
have raised the potential for local authorities to close and
sell off facilities such as parks, or otherwise give them over
to private interests, such as companies in the personal fit-
ness industry (BBC News 2015), there is no incidence of
this actually happening beyond a single case of the tree tops
in Battersea Park being rented out for adventure climbing
(Plimmer 2016). Instead, commercialisation activities are
typically small scale and include renting pitches to the sorts
of mobile coffee venders already referred to. They also
encompass sizable and longer-term outdoor advertising
contracts as councils seek to cross-fund the management
of public space through selling advertising rights on public
buildings, bus shelters, and on free-standing hoardings.16
From 2010, the ‘Boris Bike’ cycle rental scheme (named
after the former Mayor) brought private sponsorship more
visibly and ubiquitously into the public realm with sponsor-
ship initially by Barclays and latterly Santander Banks. 17
This mirrors schemes elsewhere including the Oslo City
Bike scheme sponsored by Clear Channel who fund city
bike spaces in exchange for pitches for advertising hoard-
ings and for advertising on the bikes themselves.18 Likewise
advertising on bus shelters in Oslo helps to provide funding
for the provision and maintenance of the shelters, whilst,
more ambitiously, the whole Malmö Live project was only
finally delivered courtesy of cross-funding and sponsorship
arrangements that were agreed at the last minute between the
developer, Skanska, and the city (Malmö stad 2015b, p. 13).
This has delivered 4 million SEK annually for 5 years from
the opening, and 12% of the income (1.2–1.8 million SEK
a year) from restaurant sales across the facility for 20 years
(Skanska 2011).
The security question
A final management concern relates to the question
of security that has long featured as a consideration
16
  http://www.outsm​art.org.uk/news/clear​-chann​el-wins-tower​-hamle​
ts-bus-shelt​er-adver​tisin​g-contr​act.
17
 What the future is for these bikes is unclear after the launch in
2017 of the first dockless bike hire scheme, with, by the summer of
2018: four companies competing for the business in London, huge
plans for expansion of this fleet, and prices that significantly undercut
their docked counterparts.
18
Public space in an age of austerity
Fig. 15  Barriers installed  on some Thames bridges following the
London terror attacks of 2017 (Matthew Carmona)
in London with its history of IRA attacks from 1971
through to 2001, and radical Islamist attacks starting not
long afterwards through to 2017. Shootings in 2015 in
Copenhagen had similar ideological roots, whilst the 2011
bombing of government offices in Oslo and subsequent
massacre on Utøya island had very different far right
roots. Given these attacks and numerous other smaller or
thwarted attacks in the four cities covered in this paper,
it is surprising that security measures are, in general, so
absent.
In London, the installation of security measures (physi-
cal barriers) in a few high-profile public spaces has been
the subject of much debate with a degree of target hard-
ening around prominent buildings such as the Houses
of Parliament and (recently) on bridges over the River
Thames (Fig. 15); although there remains a determination
that such issues will not impact on access to the city’s key
iconic venues (Syal and Asthana 2017). In Oslo, the need
to express sorrow following the 2011 attacks resulted in
Rosetoget when 200,000 people gathered outside Oslo
Town Hall with flowers. The resulting interrogation of
security arrangements led to accusations that government
had been negligent given the ease with which it was pos-
sible to drive up to the entrance of a government building
with a car bomb (NOU 2012, p. 14). Careful considera-
tion is now being given to security issues and how that
balances with democratic access in relation to the public
spaces being proposed for the new government quarter
(Regjeringskvartalet) proposed in Oslo. Unfortunately, on
this most confounding of management issues, the 2017
vehicle attacks in London demonstrated how profoundly
difficult it is to prevent such attacks without impacting
on the democratic nature of European cities.
Conclusion
Evolving power relationships
Terry Farrell (2017, p. 137) advances the thesis that “there
is only one thing worse for urban design than a recession,
and that is a boom” with the inevitable emergence of cash-
rich developers wanting to make a fast buck whilst the
going is good. Clearly there is a contradiction here. Whilst
recessions slow things down and offer greater scope for
the careful consideration of projects, it is also far harder
to get projects built, particularly if, as has been the case
since 2008, larger economic challenges are matched by
cuts in public funding. In reality it was only the start of the
decade discussed in this paper that actually saw technical
recession in the four cities that have been discussed, after
which the private sector continued to steam ahead with
a vengeance whilst resources were being systematically
removed from the public sector.
Across the cities, the age of austerity has seen subtle
changes in the power relationships of stakeholders, and
this has occurred within a context of a diversification in
the design, development, use and management practices
relating to the shaping of public spaces:
• In London, the austerity years do not seem to have sub-
stantially altered the balance between players respon-
sible for or affected by public space, Roberts (2017)
goes so far as to suggest that, for London, austerity
simply represented “business as usual”. Public space
has always been diverse in its ownership, management
and use, and continues to be so, although the period
has seen a renewed emphasis on very large projects
of different types. Typically, these have been driven
forward by single developers who increasingly retain
ownership, either themselves or via long-term manage-
ment organisations, of key spaces. Whilst this might be
viewed as a move to more privately owned and man-
aged spaces, in reality these sites were never in public
ownership in the first place, or if they were, were often
badly degraded and used only by those who had little
choice but to do so.
• In Copenhagen, the contemporary focus on public
space has a longer pedigree and is arguably more
ingrained than the other cities, so whilst the city was
more severely affected by the economic crisis than
some, urban development, and specifically the empha-
sis on creating a liveable city with high quality public
spaces at its heart was seen as part of the solution,
rather than as a luxury to be abandoned because public
finances were tight. Indeed, this represented the key
means through which the city increasingly represented

itself globally, evolving its approach with a greater
emphasis on bottom-up initiative and engagement,
and utilising public space investments to support the
city’s larger quality of life and environmental aspira-
tions. Like London, there has been a subtle move away
from the state as the direct provider of public space,
towards more complex collaborative structures where
local actors—public and private—join forces to fund
and facilitate public space programmes to meet mutual
goals such as the renovation of school grounds that
double as public spaces, provision of bicycle paths that
are developed in tandem with urban green areas, and
storm water management projects that are used as a
vehicle for improving public spaces.
• Sometimes, as has been the case in Malmö, these more
diffuse ways of working lead to compromise and occa-
sionally conflict. The lack of transparency underpinning
the financial case behind Malmö Live, for example, has
raised concerns about in whose interest the project was
realised. For years to come Malmö will be burdened with
the debt associated with the construction of Malmö Live,
money that is no longer available for the massive invest-
ments the city needs to make in its social infrastructure.
In this sense Malmö Live could be seen as part of a major
shift “from a more collective to a more individualised
form of public benefits” (Lehrer and Laidley 2008, p.
799). Like London and Copenhagen, increasingly the
city is looking to public–private cooperation to achieve
its aspirations, and this firmly links the creation of suc-
cessful public space to the larger economic interests and
aspirations of both the city and those same private par-
ties.
• In Oslo, there has been an increasing tendency for the
city to require a financial contribution from private devel-
opers for providing new public spaces in development
projects leading to a greater capacity of the city to both
create and manage high quality public spaces. While this
gives private actors greater power in the design, develop-
ment and management of urban public spaces, the city
has become increasingly conscious of its role in steering
these processes to ensure that outcomes are optimised.
As in the other cities this involves a conceptual devel-
opment of this role as the city has become increasingly
conscious about the social, sustainable, health and eco-
nomic benefits of a high-quality public realm. By refin-
ing the design governance tools at their disposal—the
various plans, juridical binding planning provisions, and
co-financing models—the city has been able to success-
fully negotiate these shifts in power.
The opportunities and challenges created by a rapidly chang-
ing economic and social climate seems to have led to a
period of rapid innovation across the four cities and across
M. Carmona et al.
the public spaces remit as represented in the different dimen-
sions of the place-shaping continuum used to structure this
paper. Whether, ultimately this will lead to better or worse,
more or less democratic public space is yet to be seen, the
evidence collected here suggests that even single cities can
exhibit many, sometimes quite contradictory practices and
outcomes.
The multiple evolving spaces of the austerity era
Put positively, this might be framed as a move from a ‘place-
making’ to a ‘place-shaping’ position, where public space
investment is sometimes used to create new spaces, but
more often shapes existing ones in a manner that attempts
to deliver on an ever more challenging array of public policy
goals: health, citizen engagement, economic competitive-
ness, social and environmental resilience, safety, and so
forth.
Yet even in cities so clearly in the public space advocate
mode as the four studied, public spaces need to be nurtured
and protected against pressures (if and where they exist) to
undermine the key qualities that give them their essential
sense of ‘publicness’. In the four cities these relate variously
to such issues as transparency in the provision, rights and
responsibilities associated with space; addressing the needs
of haves and have-nots simultaneously; finding new innova-
tive means to breathe life into some of the most challenging
and relentlessly sub-standard city spaces such as declining
mixed retail streets; and the need to balance democratic
rights and inclusiveness with threats from extremism, unfet-
tered economic exploitation (where it exists) and the impact
of cuts (where they persist) in the prosaic but vital steward-
ship of public spaces.
Some of the forms of public spaces (for good or ill) that
have multiplied as a result of the trends discussed in the
paper include:
• Spaces of expectation—the everyday multi-functional
spaces, charged with ever-greater expectation and
responsibility
• Spaces of the private/public sphere—shaped by private
ownership and management
• Spaces of spectacle—establishing the place and ‘selling’
the city
• Spaces of respite—offering relief from the increasingly
intensity of a densified city
• Spaces of infrastructure—repurposing redundant infra-
structure or piggy-backing on infrastructure investment
• Spaces of diversion—leisure spaces for the affluent and
the ‘creative classes’
• Spaces of income generation—featuring sponsorship
and/or other commercial funding opportunities
Public space in an age of austerity
• Spaces of security—hardened against threats and atroci-
ties
• Spaces of the ephemeral city—between one phase and
the next, meanwhile
• Spaces of community control—where communities have
taken over management responsibility
• Spaces of occupation—occupied for demonstration and
political purpose
• Spaces of disadvantage—taking root in the cracks of the
city, in amongst the affluence
• Spaces of decline—suffering the effects of structural
change and disinvestment
All these types of space exist, even in single cities, and
sometimes multiple types exists in the same space: the space
of spectacle as locus for the homeless to beg; the creative
classes diverted by the excitement of the ephemeral; or shop-
pers in everyday space (of expectation or decline) negotiat-
ing the array of ever more prominent security measures.
Over this the neo-liberal project persists, sometimes more
(e.g. London) sometimes less (e.g. Copenhagen) obvious
in its expression, and always of a hybrid form; neo-liberal
within a social-democratic setting. It is interesting then that
within this context, the evidence gathered suggests that (in
toto) the direction of travel, if not every outcome, is more
positive than negative. Despite the financial pressures, in
these four cites the commitment to public space and its criti-
cal social role in society has been maintained. In this respect,
the crisis has not gone to waste.
Acknowledgements  The authors would like to acknowledge funding
from the Norwegian Research Council and from the Economic and
Social Research Council in the UK who funded the original research
on which the analytical framework for this paper is based.
Open Access  This article is distributed under the terms of the Crea-
tive Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creat​iveco​
mmons​.org/licen​ses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribu-
tion, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the
Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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